getSensorList() vs. getDefaultSensor() in Android SensorManager

Question

I'm writing a game for Android and want to be able to use the accelerometer for input.

I see two ways of getting a sensor, one way is to use the first element of SensorManager.getSensorList(Sensor.TYPE_ACCELEROMETER) and the other is SensorManager.getDefaultSensor(Sensor.TYPE_ACCELEROMETER).

The getDefaultSensor doc says it could return a "composite" sensor, so if I want a "raw" sensor I should use getSensorList.

Any idea what the difference between a composite or raw sensor is? Does this even apply to the accelerometer? Anyone have experience with devices that contain multiple or composite accelerometers? (Or some other sensor?)

Answer 1

Google's documentation is way ahead of their implementation here. I browsed through the code repository (which seems to be 2.3.1-ish source) and found:

public Sensor getDefaultSensor(int type) {
    // TODO: need to be smarter, for now, just return the 1st sensor
    List<Sensor> l = getSensorList(type);
    return l.isEmpty() ? null : l.get(0);
}

So there is no real difference (and I don't think they can really add one later) between the sensors returned from getDefaultSensor() and from getSensorList().